In late 1941, WW II had been raging for over two years. Britain was holding out alone in Europe and Hitler’s Panzers were within sight of Moscow. With the horrors of WW I fresh, the United States wanted no more foreign entanglements.

FDR knew the US would have to enter the war on the side of the Allies. Allowing the Axis Powers to absorb huge populations and untold natural resources would eventually create powers too big to defeat. Every farm, oil well, rubber tree, factory, and military age man absorbed by the Axis meant another increment of strength to our enemies. What – if anything – could awaken the American people to the growing and imminent threat to our very existence as a free republic?

Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto stepped up with a perverse and tragic gift on December 7th. The horrific news of the attack on Pearl Harbor galvanized the American people as nothing else could. The intense anger following that sneak attack combined with the sober realization that half the world’s modern military strength was arrayed against us stoked the determination to destroy our enemies. The acute realization that our nation was in mortal danger of becoming an Axis conquest awoke the instinct of self preservation. From that moment on, America was at war to win.

The Obama Administration is our generation’s domestic Pearl Harbor. We must take advantage of it to preserve our country for future generations. Barack Obama has given us a priceless gift if we are strong, smart, and organized enough to use it to our advantage. It is an attack on our freedom, liberties, way of life, and our children’s future, from within. It is an assault on America’s greatness, the destruction of her exceptionalism, and the squandering of her prosperity. It is up to us and like minded people throughout the land to seize on this gift and turn it to our advantage.

In my adult lifetime, America’s population has increased about 40%. In that same time, the proportion of people dependent on, or working for government has increased by over 270%. A whopping 30% of all Americans are currently either working for government or receiving some sort of assistance, transfer payment, or entitlement.

The currently employed labor force is about 45% of our total population. Almost half of them pay no taxes whatsoever, so that further dilutes the number supporting the 30% to around 22.5%. If you pay taxes, you are not only supporting yourself, but also more than one person on government programs or employment. The imbalance of these numbers gets worse by the year. It is the slow bleeding of our fiscal stability on the path to inevitable to economic suicide.

Obama and his cadre of hacks, elitists, sycophants, czars, camp followers, and assorted & sundry buffoons are ratcheting up every handout, entitlement, and subsidy they can to increase dependency on government. These burgeoning government giveaways are no different than the farms, oil wells, factories, mills, and young men that were being swept into the maw of the Axis war machine. Each new handout buys strength for the Obama welfare state juggernaut. Senator Jim DeMint stated that “A dependent voter is a dependable vote.” Obama is buying as many as he can with money as yet unearned by those yet unborn.

This is the path so disastrously trod before us by Greece, and being quickly followed by Italy, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, and Hungary. Our future is unfolding before us in Europe this very minute. The only preventative measure that will save us from a similar fate is to emasculate the Obama Administration in November with our votes. While we are at it, let’s broom out a few dozen Bush-era RINOs who don’t concern themselves with our future any more than the current regime.

Here is deficit spending compared to a cross country road trip. It will give some perspective:

Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country!

Just for clarification; that line did not come from the mouth of some famous leader back in history. It originated as a typing class drill by a teacher named Charles E. Weller in about 1867.

Social security is nearing its moment of truth. If this massive time bomb is not drastically modified before the fuse gets too short, we may well have a violent backlash. Say “Greece”. Future generations will realize they are being taxed beyond their capacity to pay to support growing numbers of retirees with Social Security benefits as they live well into their 80s and 90s. The graph below demonstrates the decay of Social Security deficit projections in just the past year. Where will that money come from?

CBO Social Security Deficits

There are three options:

1. Do nothing, allowing the future to unfold leading to national financial ruin.
2. Kick the can along to the next generation with tax increases and band aid fixes.
3. Fix it now- forever- while the popular inertia is behind the idea.

1 and 2 are already discredited having been practiced over the past 50 years. Buying votes from senior citizens over the past 3 generations and fearing their retribution every other November has brought the system to the breaking point. The third choice is the only realistic path and we may just be witnessing the grass roots support to get it done.

Social Security was passed as a self sustaining government run plan to provide a minimum level of benefits to retirees, many of whom were entering old age destitute from enduring the Great Depression. Over the years it was larded with additional benefits, recipients, and the billions collected from payers were squandered on present spending. The money was replaced with government IOUs. The system just went into the red and those IOUs must be covered through additional taxes, deficits, and borrowing.

One way to save the system would be to ratchet the retirement age up over time to the equivalent of what it was in 1935. If it was a fair age of eligibility then, it is fair now. In 1935 life expectancy was 61.7 and eligibility began at 65. Today the average is 77.8. Using the original formula, benefits should start at just under 82 years of age. Although many seniors would be able to work well into their 70s, expecting them to do so until 82 is not realistic.

An alternative would be to allow anyone to retire at any age but be eligible for only monthly benefits based on lifetime contributions, and accrued interest divided by the number of months actuarial tables show as additional lifespan. These benefits could be paid until death based on this formula since half the recipients will pass on prior, and half after the expected life years point arrives. The longer one works before retirement, the higher their benefits would be.

Neither of these ideas will be palatable to seniors, but something like this has to be done to save our young and unborn from the consequences of an overly generous and unsustainable retirement program. The follow-on benefit will be that a majority of folks approaching retirement age will be highly motivated to save and invest on their own behalf well ahead of reaching their golden years.

These are just a couple ideas from which to start discussion. However no such dialogue can possibly start; and this huge problem cannot ever be solved without a tectonic change of leadership in Washington. There may be a loophole in history forming right now that could lead to such a move. The growing rage at the grass roots level, if coordinated and successful, could well bring a flock of principled and courageous new legislators to Congress in November. They would join the remaining battle scarred incumbents who after fighting for their political lives may indeed be ready to do the right things.

Let us hope the power and inertia of the tea party movement does not metastasize into a third party fiasco, but instead elevates strong, fiscally responsible candidates from both parties into office. There are good Democrats in the field who are running far to the right of the present administration, understanding that courageously breaking with past party orthodoxy is the only hope of being elected. There are mediocre Republicans presently in office who will be broomed out as happened to Bob Bennett of Utah.

It is our responsibility as voting citizens to elevate to office those who swear to address this entitlement Tsunami immediately for the benefit of our nation and its future generations.

Washington State has a golden opportunity to replace a rubber stamp in tennis shoes with a truly unique and powerful individual as US Senator. There are 11 candidates currently in the primary for the Republican nomination to face Patty Murray in November. Any one of them would be an exponential improvement over the representation we have now. Murray rolls over and votes with the Obama Administration nearly 90% of the time. They are squandering our childrens’ futures with more spending, borrowing, and unrealistic promises that can never be kept.

The only way to begin a turnaround at the federal level is to change our representation in DC. Scott Brown proved it could be done by handily winning a Senate seat in heavily Democratic Massachusetts. Various incumbents of both parties are threatened with losses in primaries and will not even get a chance to defend their seats in the general election. It is time to send Patty Murray back to a classroom where the damage she can do will be limited to a few feeble young minds and not the entire nation.

This is the new Governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie who defeated Democrat John Corzine last fall. New Jersey is mired in debt with corresponding high tax levels and is bleeding wealth and businesses at an alarming rate. Here Mr. Christie cogently answers one of his press adversaries who inquired about his “tone.”

Electing a dozen such men and women to the US Senate right now would be the best thing we could do to serve our nation and begin the necessary steps of reprioritizing our government’s activities before we begin to look like Greece. Let us get to know our primary Senate candidates and elect someone with this level of honesty and courage.

Will Dino Rossi enter the race for US Senate? Rossi served 6 years in the Washington State Senate. He is especially remembered for his work negotiating a bi-partisan budget in 2003 along with several bills changing criminal statutes. He ran for Governor in 2004 and initially won with a margin of 261 votes. Victory was denied him after two subsequent recounts, the last of which featured court battles and an odiferous undercurrent. He ran for Governor again in ’08, losing by a margin of 6%. That election was the beginning of a national backlash against Republicans in general, which they well deserved.

There are nine candidates declared in the Primary scheduled for August 27th. The filing deadline is June 10th. So far, Rossi remains uncommitted. He is the elephant in the room, who has the instant capability and power to enter the race, sweep all opposition from the field, and run against Murray. Maybe so, but is it the right thing for Republicans and above all, for Washington State?

Rossi was a good State Senator, but an ultimately unsuccessful gubernatorial candidate. No matter what one thinks about the close election in ’04, Rossi still has two straight losses on his record. Would the third try be a charm, or a curse? Rossi is also viewed as an establishment Republican, somewhat tainted by his reputation of being too willing to vote with liberal Democrats. Keep in mind that such dealing at the national level has saddled this nation with incomprehensible debt and unsustainable entitlement programs over the past 75 years.

Most of Washington’s past “Republican” senators have suffered from a mealy-mouthed wimp complex, and voted more like Democrats than Republicans. A second coming of Slade Gorton would not do in today’s political climate. An opponent considered by the electorate as weak on important issues would be little different than the incumbent. Thousands of highly motivated voters would recognize the false choice, lose enthusiasm, stay home, and Murray would win by default.

Democrats and Murray’s team fear Rossi. They have been going to great lengths for years to dig up any dirt they can find and planting little news stories in a compliant media. None of these arson attempts have really taken off, but the constant drip of negative insinuations has hurt Rossi over time. You can bet that Murray’s campaign will release everything in an effort to make Rossi into cannon fodder.

Looking across the Atlantic and the unraveling of the Greek socialist economy, Americans are beginning to understand that a similar future awaits them if present policies and trends are not reversed. We must swamp Congress with fresh leadership and ideas. There are several candidates in the primary who have these attributes. They have been sacrificing time and money; criss-crossing the state to get their messages out. Meanwhile Rossi dithers and teases, seemingly enjoying his status while coyly playing with the press and his supporters.

Dino the Destructive Dinosaur

Rossi is obsolete today, tainted with too much “go along to get along” history and the baggage of two major electoral losses. He would be wrong to think he can depend on name recognition and erstwhile supporters, many of whom have enthusiastically embraced one of the present candidates. Many of us have followed this primary race closely and gotten to know the candidates. A late Rossi filing would be viewed as a narcissistic entry that would fracture the emerging groundswell of support for a truly strong opponent to Murray. The backlash against Rossi could sink any chance of defeating Murray in the fall.

Our nation’s future is in great peril. We need new leadership in the Senate that is not afraid of being accused of breaking some legislative china. Rossi is not the man to handle that job.

There he stands with a woman about his age; he holding a sign, she an American flag. His apparent age reveals the fact that he probably grew up subject to the draft. If his hair is completely gray, he may have stormed the beach at Normandy in 1944 or suffered the freezing weeks at the Chosin Reservoirin ’50. A little less gray, he may have experienced Khe Sahn in ’68 or the heat of Iraq in ’91.

He probably worked hard all his life. Maybe he spent endless hours as a line haul truck driver. Perhaps he riveted aircraft wings for 40 years. He could be an engineer designing machines to improve our standard of living. There is a good chance he may be a doctor, accountant, manager, or mechanic. His life profession does not matter. His purpose here is to show his concern for the direction his beloved country seems to be headed.

He has served with and worked alongside others of all races and creeds and is not a bigot. He respects anyone with a work ethic and a spirit of self reliance. He believes in private and government support for those unfortunate enough to have been dealt the hand of disability. He has little understanding or patience for those who seek support to alleviate difficulties brought on by their own actions of lack thereof.

He was raised understanding that opportunity in America is boundless and limited only by the abilities and efforts of the individual. He paid his taxes, paid his bills, bought a home he could afford, saved some money, and raised children always believing that their future would be brighter than his. Now this belief has been shaken.

The many thousands he paid into Social Security were spent – never “saved” – and his kids will now be taxed to pay his benefits. The extravagant promises of Medicare appear to be slowly dissolving before his eyes, and whatever benefits he is to receive from that program will also be financed by his children. He is stunned by the trillions being added to the national debt for the purposes of propping up failing business models and retaining government workers.

The man is angry – angry at the spending with no apparent end or means to pay for it. Angry; at the certainty of higher taxes on the horizon. Angry; that the Administration and Congress wasted over a year on a health care fiasco instead of concentrating on the economy. Angry; at the dilution of US defenses and the de-emphasis on the opposition to terrorists. Angry at the shabby treatment of staunch allies like Israel, Columbia, Honduras, South Korea, and Poland. This paragraph could go on for many lines, but the point is made.

He is “angry” but does that make him “dangerous”? No. The man has probably seen more than his share of war and bloodshed. He loves his country and its people far too much to even consider taking up arms. He cherishes our Constitution and the protection of rights it enshrines. He is exercising those rights at this very moment and quietly treasuring the fact that he can do so here while billions in other nations can not.

The Administration and its media sycophants fear this man, and with good reason. His opinions are spreading across the land in opposition to the reckless policies mentioned above. As the weeks pass toward Election Day, his quiet, courageous stand against the devolving of the American dream are being taken up by millions of like minded citizens. This man, with determination, dedication, sinew and guts helped defend and build this nation and he will not sit idly by and watch it rot from within. He is to be revered – not denigrated. We owe him our deepest gratitude for answering the call once again to preserve America and our way of life.